Ex-Hostage’s Book Tries to Set Record Straight : Survival: David Jacobsen of Huntington Beach tells what it was like, how he stayed alive and sane.

When David Jacobsen was released from captivity in Beirut in 1986 after 531 days in the international spotlight, the one-time hospital administrator swore he would avoid the lure of book publishers quick to come his way.

There were plenty of other ways to spend his time at home in Huntington Beach--like getting reacquainted with his family here, awaiting the arrival of his first grandchild and healing from what he now calls “the nightmare” of his time as a hostage.

But his attitude began to change about three years later, he said. “I got so frustrated whenever there was news on the hostages, I would get calls from all over the country.”

Bitterly, he recited the string of questions that still continually confront him: Who are these shadowy terrorists? How were you treated? What do you think of the Iran-contra scandal? Why did you stay in Beirut as head of American University Hospital if it was so dangerous?

“Nobody’s ever really listened,” Jacobsen said. “Maybe I just wasn’t clear enough in choosing my words. But I wanted to explain some simple facts.”

So the 60-year-old Jacobsen wrote his book after all. Titled “Hostage: My Nightmare in Beirut,” the book was released last week--coincidentally, just in the midst of tense negotiations to secure the release of Western hostages remaining in Lebanon.

Jacobsen is making appearances in New York, Washington and Chicago to promote his book. But he is also keeping a close eye on the status of those left behind in the Middle East. Just this week, he appeared on “Nightline” with Henry A. Kissinger to discuss the developments.

Even while diplomats say high hurdles remain in the hostage negotiations, Jacobsen is unabatingly optimistic.

“Sixty days and this nightmare is going to be over,” he said in an interview Thursday from Washington. “The hostages will be coming out--they’re not going to come out all at one time, but to save face some of the Muslims held by the Israelis will have to come out, and then the Arabs will come back with some of theirs. . . . I’m very encouraged.”

But at the same time, Jacobsen wants the world to remember the strategic mistakes and miscalculations that led to the hostage crisis--and he thinks his book can help do this.

“The thing that most of the public doesn’t seem to remember is that Iran is the Great Satan in terrorism in Lebanon”--instructing, financing and giving logistical support to the terrorists, he said.

Jacobsen said that the captors, who he said go by many different names but in reality are one group--principally the Islamic Jihad--are merely the Iranians’ “hunting dogs.”

From the months of research and interviews that followed his release, Jacobsen offers a sometimes-biting critique of U.S. and world policy toward terrorists during the 1980s. But along with policy analysis, the book also offers personal insights into what it was like “sitting in chains in Lebanon” for 17 months.

The key to his survival there, Jacobsen said, were his seven “coping mechanisms.”

These ranged from the spiritual--a strong belief in God--to the physical, doing about 600 sit-ups and push-ups each day; to the mundane--passing the hours each day by taking himself on a mental ride through Southern California, picturing the freeway off-ramps and trying to remember the once-familiar storefronts that dotted Beach Boulevard in his hometown.

All, he said, helped him to keep sight of his ultimate goal of someday returning home.